Big Nate: In A Class By Himself
Big Nate in a Class by Himself ''is the first book of the Big Nate novel series. It is followed by ''Big Nate Strikes Again. Nate is asleep, and dreams that he is in Mrs. Godfrey's class. She calls on Nate for a question he doesn't know the answer to. He hears the bell ring, but it's actually his alarm clock. His dream ends. When he gets up, he explains that he wants to use his talents for more useful things than memorizing historical facts. He makes a report card for his school day types. He thinks of a test and then thinks there is a test today. He sees Francis reading his history book and thinks there is a test today. He remembers that on the last test, Mrs. Godfrey said that he will take summer school if he does poorly on the next test. Nate thinks about what summer school will be like. He plans how to get out of the test, but his plans fail. He writes an excuse note. Francis sees him writing it and tells Nate that there is no social studies test today. They head to school. Teddy gives Nate a fortune cookie. It says, "Today you will surpass all others." In homeroom, Nate eats the fortune cookie. Gina catches him and tells Mrs. Godfrey. Nate swallows it in time, and Mrs. Godfrey says that Gina was mistaken. Nate pulls out his nickname list for Mrs. Godfrey, but she catches him. He gets detention for "insolence". Nate heads to English class. The class is in their poetry unit. His teacher, Ms. Clarke, tells him to write about something other than Cheez Doodles. He starts to write a love poem to Jenny, but Gina sees it and yells it to the whole class. Nate angrily screams at Gina, earning his second detention for "being disruptive in class, insulting a student". When Nate heads to art, he sees Artur's drawing of a shoe in the display case. Nate tries to ask Mr. Rosa to put his painting in the display case, but says he can't do it right now. Francis distracts Mr. Rosa with the balloon flying. Nate tries to open the display case. The knob breaks off, Mr. Rosa hears it and gives Nate another detention for "☹". He heads to lunch. Nate heads to lunch. Francis and Teddy collect 148 servings of green beans for Nate to eat. Nate eats some green beans and spits them out. Principal Nichols tells Nate to clean it up and slips and falls in the bean juice. He gets a detention for "green bean incident". At P.E., Coach John is substitute teaching. Nate's shorts look like he wet his pants, so he looks for new shorts. He accidentally picked Coach John's shorts. Coach John makes him run wind sprints and gives him a detention for "no respect for teacher". He then leaves for math. They have a pop quiz. Nate thought he finished all the questions first, but he didn't realize there was a back until Mr. Staples said it was time to turn it in. Nate and Mr. Staples pull on it, and it rips, and Nate gets another detention. In science, Nate tries to get Mr. Galvin to laugh. He tells him a joke, tickles him, and shows him one of his Dr. Cesspool comics. Mr. Galvin takes the comic and Nate's special drawing pen. The cap fell off the pen in Mr. Galvin's shirt pocket. A red dot grows on his shirt. Nate laughs about it and gets another detention. When he goes to detention, he set the new school record, fullfilling the fortune.